Preview

Poetry Comparative Essay

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
491 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Poetry Comparative Essay
Daniella Pashuk January 23, 2015 Whyte and Keats Comparison Essay

Poetry has a very large border of rules, making many completely different yet amazing poems like these two. “When I Have Fears” and “I’ve Always Lived Across the Street” are perfect examples of two quite different poems that share small, and slightly hard to notice similarities. Although both poems are in majority different, further inspection revealed some interesting similarities.
Both pieces have many examples of descriptive language that paint clear images of what the poets wanted us to see. For Example, "the ambiguous dread in double negative interrogation ("Did you not understand what you did was
wrong?")" (Whyte, 40-41) The image of a little boy or girl being scolded by their parents for doing something wrong went into my head; reminding me of the times I dreaded those double negative interrogations from my mom. John Keats's poem was filled with descriptive sentences like, "On the shore of the wide world I stand alone, and think till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink." (Keats, 12-13) There is a dreadful tone to this phrase, like a dying man that learned that things like love and fame are nothing in the end is speaking it.
These two poems have opposite rhyme schemes, "When I Have Fears" has a structured scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG whereas, "I've always lived across the street" has no rhyme scheme at all. Due to this difference, their forms are also not similar. The structured, "When I Have Fears" is a sonnet, with 14 lines and 10 syllables while, "I've always lived across the street" is definitely a free form poem that has no rules regarding stanzas, rhythm and syllables.

The tones of these poems really set them apart. "I've Always Lived Across The Street" has a pretty upbeat tone to it, sometimes even childish while; "When I Have Fears" is the complete opposite. This poem has a very melancholy tone and like anything that mentions death,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Another similarity between the two poems is the use of the structure to represent the feelings of the speaker.…

    • 476 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many themes that are seen in both the poems. These include Revenge, Anger, Depression and Death. The two key themes in the both poems; Murder and Jealousy are both portrayed in different ways according to each killer’s motives.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    On main thing both of the poems have in common is that they are both talking about how their parents were. They use a variety of metaphors to suggest what their parents are like. “Gilded finches” and “moon’s eye to me.”…

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This a comparative analysis of poems 'To His Coy Mistress', 'Let's Misbehave' (actually is a song) and 'The Sunne Rising'. It was supposed to be 4 poems, but I'm pretty sure a paragraph went missing, so this is up for repairs.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most people expect that all poetry should be close to the same thing if we were to have the same theme, but in fact, although there are many similarities, there can also be many differences too. Upon comparison of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot and Afternoons and Coffee Spoons by Crash Test Dummies we see just this. These two poems share similarities in theme, and reference to time but do not have similar tones.…

    • 648 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The according moods of both poems are expressed be means of form; that is to say by rhythm and structure first of all.…

    • 1124 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the poem “I Hear America Singing “by Walt Whitman, and the poem “I, Too” by Langston Hughes have many different similarities. “ I Hear America Singing” I s and example of free verse. Also “I, Too” is an example of free verse. In “I Hear America Singing “is talking about residents in America being happy and joyful about being able to work. The poem “I, Too” is about the African American house worker being sent into the kitchen when guest came over for dinner.…

    • 304 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The thing that makes both of the poems alike is that they both serve the same purpose in explaining the lives of two different people but the common chain between the both of them is that one is young and the other is old. The both of them play off of each other in the sense that the poem about the younger generation who are rushing through their lives skipping school, staying out late shooting pool and dying before their time. While in the old one, the men are enjoying their lives and living it to the fullest knowing they are not going to live forever.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second sections of the two poems draw attention to the differences in each situation. The two poets use symbolism of something dark; Keats using the…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mezzo Cammin By Longfellow

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “When I Have Fears” By Keats has comparable situations to the poem of “Mezzo Cammin” by Longfellow. Each of these poems are complex in their own way where there are contrasts in them too. Both the authors use similar style of poetic techniques, but have a different perspective on their situation and one deals with not accomplishing as much as possible in life, and the other not acting upon what they really want to do.…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Metaphors In London

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Both of these poets let you into their thoughts in their own unique and different perspectives. Those mindsets show London in opposite ways. Through the use of metaphors, personification, and imagery they show the reader the world that London is, late 1700…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    after death is what is very dissimilar. In the poem when she says "We passed…

    • 468 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John Keats poems "Ode to a Nightingale" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" seem to have been written with the intention of describing a moment in one's life, like that of the fleeting tune of a nightingale or a scene pictured on an urn. Within each of these moments a multitude of emotions are established, with each morphing from one to another very subtly. What is also more subtle about these two poems is their differences. While they do touch on very similar topics, the objects used to personify Keats' ideas on death and immortality differ and the ideas represented by them do diverge at different points in the poems as well. Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" touches on the indefinable and puzzling relationship between art and life. Paradoxically, it's the representation of the urn, which would usually be associated with a characteristic melancholy, stillness, and grief caused by death, which is shown to be indicative of life. In "Ode to a Nightingale" a supposed happiness is being connected to the nightingale while its song contradicts the heavy weight of human sorrow and illness, and the transient quality of beauty and youth. This is clear in the line, "Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird" (line 61), the nightingale is not associated with mortal elements. The odes do seem similar in several ways because in both Keats does portray symbols of immortality and the avoidance of death, as well as the spectrum of emotions from grief to joy. However, the symbol of the nightingale is an object of nature found in reality while the urn is an object of fantasy, a work of art. Both these poems require differing senses to be able to understand them. By comparing and contrasting the aspects of each poem, it is clear that all the elements relate directly, but differently to human spirit and human emotions.…

    • 1637 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Road Not Taken and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening are both very good poems. I feel The Road Not Taken is one that reminds me of myself. I will tell you how they differ but at the same time are so much alike.…

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Caged Bird Poem Analysis

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages

    These two poems also have their differences. The authors were in different times, thinking in different perspectives. Dunbar, born from former slaves,…

    • 266 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics